In today's work environment, telephone and e-mail are two popular methods to communicate, and have become essential to the functioning of a modern business. Increasingly, the line between the telephone and e-mail systems is becoming blurred. In many businesses, the telephones and computers are linked to a common network. One result of this common linking is that voice mail messages may be retrieved on the computer via e-mail and e-mail messages may be retrieved via telephone. In addition, the rapid rise of wireless technology has permitted the development of hybrid devices such as mobile telephones that can receive e-mail and handheld e-mail devices that can function as a telephone. Notable among these are the currently popular the Treo™ Smartphone, which can also be used to send and receive e-mails, and the Blackberry® wireless e-mail device, which may also contain telephone capability. Some of these devices also are web-enabled, permitting the user to access web pages or other information over the Internet or another wireless network.
However, despite their residence within the same network or even the same device, the two communication methods are not very well linked to each other. For example, a person may receive an e-mail with a request from the sender to give them a call at a designated phone number. Although some existing systems, such as the Treo® Smartphone, have the capability to automatically dial the designated number, there is no way to automatically save the designed number into a telephone's memory for later “speed-dial” redialing, but instead the number must be manually entered, which both takes time and carries the risk of improper entry.
Prior art systems that relate to the connection between the computer and the telephone fail to address this problem. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,424,711 to Bayless et al. discloses a system that permits the automatic display of information regarding a caller, including telephone number and the local time and location of the calling party. However, the system disclosed in Bayless et al. merely provides a system and method for display of the information regarding the caller; it does not permit the called party to automatically retrieve this information for storage in the called party's telephone memory or otherwise.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,526,042 to Pinard et al. also fails to solve this problem. Pinard discloses a “click to call” method such as is used in the Treo™ Smartphone, in which a call recipient can click on a hyperlink in an e-mail message to initiate a return telephone to the sending party. By clicking on the hyperlink, the call recipient launches a web browser to access a web page which then returns an applet that initiates a return call to the sending party. However, the sending party's telephone number or other caller ID information is not stored in memory for future use but is only retrieved each time the “call me” hyperlink is clicked. The return caller's caller ID information also is not provided to the sending party, since the return call is not made directly from the caller but via intermediary call control software. In addition, the method of Pinard requires a web browser, and cannot be used by the users of Blackberries® or Treos™ who only retrieve e-mails on the phones but do not have full web browser capability.
Thus, there is a need for a method and apparatus which permits a user to quickly and easily select a telephone number contained in an e-mail, web page, or other text displayed on a screen and store that telephone number in telephone memory for later use.